• The Rangers were defeated by the Pittsburgh Penguins, 3-1, tonight at Madison Square Garden, and are now 14-11-1 overall with a 5-7-1 mark at home. New York is now 4-2-0 in their last six games.

• The Blueshirts wrapped up their November schedule with a 9-7-0 record in 16 games, the most for New York in a month this season. The month included four back-to-back sets, in which the Rangers posted a 6-2-0 mark overall with a 4-0-0 record in the second game of the back-to-backs. Last season, the Rangers played 16 games in January, and posted a 6-7-3 record during the stretch.

• Brandon Dubinsky led the Rangers in scoring with 11 points and seven goals during November, while Dan Girardi tallied a team-high, seven assists. Henrik Lundqvist posted a record of 5-6-0 with a 2.54 goals against average, a .915 save percentage and two shutouts in 11 November appearances. Martin Biron was 4-1-0 with a 1.83 goals against average and a .930 save percentage in six games during the month.

• New York held Pittsburgh scoreless in one power play opportunity (2:00), and has now yielded just four goals in their last 14 games for a 91.3% success rate (42-46).

• Marian Gaborik notched the Rangers’ only goal at 16:19 of the second period in his return to the lineup after missing Saturday’s 2-1 shootout win at Nashville with the flu. He has now registered nine points (five goals, four assists) in his last nine games.

• Michal Rozsival registered an assist and was credited with four hits in 24:54 of ice time. He now ranks second among team defensemen with seven assists and nine points on the season.

• The Blueshirts tallied 39 hits in the contest, led by Ryan Callahan (five), and had five players credited with four hits apiece – Michael Del Zotto, Brandon Prust, Sean Avery, Brian Boyle, and Michal Rozsival. Callahan entered the contest ranked second in the NHL with 97 hits. The Rangers lead the NHL with 776 hits on the season, including a league-high, 469 hits at home.

• Erik Christensen led the team with 10 faceoff wins in 16 attempts (63%) while skating in his 300th career NHL game. Now in his sixth NHL season, Christensen has registered 53 goals and 80 assists for 133 career points.

• Henrik Lundqvist stopped 34 shots in net for the Rangers and is now 9-9-1 on the season. Lundqvist has posted a career record of 17-13-4 in 34 career regular season appearances vs. the Penguins.

• After an off-day tomorrow, the Blueshirts’ practice schedule for Wednesday, Dec. 1, is 11:00 a.m. at the MSG Training Center.

• The Rangers will return to action on Thursday, Dec. 2, when they will face-off against the New York Islanders at Nassau Coliseum (7:00 p.m.), in the first game of the Rangers’ only home-and-home set of the season. The contest will be televised live on MSG Network, and can be heard on 1050 ESPN Radio or at MSG.com.

POST-GAME QUOTES

John Tortorella on tonight’s game… “I thought we played a really good first period – unlucky goal. Probably with eight, 10 minutes left in the first is where we struggled. They are good enough to capitalize in those situations. We gave up some odd man rushes. Other than that, I thought we put in some good minutes there.”

Henrik Lundqvist on tonight’s game… “We talked about it this morning – he (Sidney Crosby) is a good player. He will draw a lot of attention. We had a stretch in the second period where they came hard. I thought in the first and especially in the third period that we played really, really well.”

Ryan Callahan on tonight’s game… “I thought we had a strong first period. It was unfortunate they got one (goal). Other than six minutes we played a pretty good first period. Obviously we need to capitalize on our power play late in the game in the third, but overall we just had to finish those six minutes in the first.”

Rick Carpiniello, 26, was born and raised in Harrison and began working in The Journal News' sports department (back when it was The Reporter Dispatch and eight other newspapers) in October of 1977 after a year of covering high school sports as a stringer. In 1978 he began covering the New York Rangers and the National Hockey League. Carpiniello has been writing columns on everything from local sports to the big leagues since 2002.